Raymond, ME

Wow! It's hard to believe it, but we have only one day left. One forty-mile day. As I write this I'm sitting around Dave Brockett's (Mr. Brockett's brother) cozy, rustic living room at his camp on Crescent Lake. The whole group is here, and joining us for the night is SPS graduate Stu Lovejoy. And oh yeah, we're in Maine. Finally.
Today's journey was a shorter ride than usual, only a mere seventy miles to Sarah's uncle's house. We began the day with an excellent breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon at Sarah's house, then embarked on our voyage of the day. We slowly rode through the first fifteen miles of the day, going back to memories of the trip and replaying them over again. At the fifteen-mile marker Mr. Brockett beckoned us off the road and told that we were in Maine! Finally, our voyage was officially coming to a finish. We got off our bikes and posed to take a photo of us forming an ME with our bodies at the border. Then the mosquitoes attacked! They had been lying in ambush, waiting for the unwitting cyclists to get off their bikes. They took full advantage of their unmoving prey, biting us on virtually every location on our bodies. "Take the picture!" we yelled to Mark Richardson, as the mosquitoes buzzed around us for Round Two of their feeding frenzy. Mark took our picture, and we sprinted back to our bikes, picked them up, and hastily continued on. That was our welcome to Maine.
Another fifteen miles later, the group stopped for the rarest of occasions: second breakfast. As always, the extra meal hit the spot. The next forty miles were uneventful, save for Sarah getting a flat. Hey, if we didn't get one a day, we wouldn't be doing our job right. While Mr. Brockett quickly changed her tire, Sarah swatted the ever-present mosquitoes off of her dad and herself. The next event of the day came two miles away from the Brockett's camp. In front of us loomed a short, yet literally forty-five degree hill. Knowing that this was one of our last hills of the trip, we went at it with gusto, and arrived at the Brockett camp. There we were greeted by our two hosts for the night, Dave Brockett (Mr. Brockett's brother) and Dawn Brockett. They warmly welcomed us to their home and invited us to come take a dip in their lake. The water was cool and refreshing, and no sooner had we dried ourselves off than SPS graduate Stu Lovejoy, who was working at a nearby summer camp, stopped by. We had dinner with Stu, and talked for hours outside in front of the outdoor fire, roasting marshmallows and catching up on each other's stories. Soon enough though, the sun set and Stu had to go. And now we're inside, reminiscing about past adventures as we organize pictures for tomorrow's festivites.

It's hard to think that we have only forty miles left. I never thought that we'd reach this point in time. We've been riding for so long now, that doing this day in and day out has become a way of life. It will be hard to revert back to the normalcy of the real world.

I think we're all ready to be done though. It will be interesting to see how tomorrow's events play out in comparison to the millions of scenarios that we've all concocted in our minds while on the road. But no matter what happens, I'm sure that it will be a day that we will remember for the rest of our lives.